Unobtrusive

Last night hubby and I went out for my belated birthday dinner. I’ve been sick with a bad cold for over a week and last week I was in no shape to be going out. But last night the lure of sweet potato fries, gluten free pasta and yummy soup got me out of the house.

Tom of course came with, tucked himself under our table and snoozed as he does while we ate.

Tom has a tendency to migrate as he sleeps. I have no idea how he does it. He’s in a down the entire time and he’s sound asleep. His sleep migration tendency is one of the reasons I usually request booth seating when we happen to go out to dinner, as then there is a wall for him to sleep against and avoid migration. Otherwise I always have to keep a foot against his back so I can feel when he starts to migrate and wake him up to get back fully under the table. It’s like he turns to ooze when he sleeps and that combined with well varnished floors of a restaurant means migration. Anyway in this 1 particular booth at this particular restaurant if he sleep migrates in a certain way he ends up stuck under the seat and I have to help him out. There is a gap under the seating booth of about 6″ and he somehow manages to ooze under it. My 63# retriever cross manages to slide himself under a 6″ tall opening as he sleeps, and people wonder how he fits under an airplane seat when he’s awake and actually trying, easily he fits under an airplane seat easily.

Regardless, as I’m fishing my guide dog out from under the booth seat last night after our meal, a couple seated nearby exclaimed, “If we hadn’t seen you folks come in, we would have had no idea your dog was there! He is so good!”

As it should be, as it should be.

I remember a long time ago when I was first researching service and guide dogs hearing the term unobtrusive used to describe an assistance animal. And it’s one I go back to time and time again, a working assistance animal should be as unobtrusive as possible. They do their job, help their person, and act in a manner as invisible as possible to the general public.

Unobtrusive. The word fits Tom to a T.

Except when he wants me to pet him. Then he’s as obtrusive as all get out.

Pet me. I NEED all the petting. Right now! Tom’s large black head nudging me to pet him.

0 thoughts on “Unobtrusive”

Back in August when we were traveling, and I had Brèagha with me, someone said that to me; ” I didn’t even know there was a dog under there!” We were sitting outdoors at a restaurant that allowed dogs on their porch, and she was under the table being very quiet. She’s always been a natural at that.
Me, not so much, at least not on this occasion, because I had to be loud mouth. XD You see, when we got there, we had to walk past this table, these people were sitting there with their dog tied to the table on a very long leash, not paying him any mind at all. He made a rush at Brèagha, growling and everything, and I scooped her up and blurted out,”will you keep your vicious dog away from me PLEASE?” They apologized, but I just ignored them and walked to our table, oh gosh, I am not proud of that at all. But hey, I was hot, I was tired, I was stressed, and I had basically almost had a heart attack, LOL!
But to me, when I have my dog out in public, and somebody exclaims that they didn’t even notice her, that is the greatest compliment EVER! Because any time we take our dogs into public, we are ambassadors for all dog owners, and our behavior and our dog’s behavior affect the way the general public sees dog owners, whether we like it or not. I was a bad ambassador that day, but Brèagha was perfect.

LOL, lucky for me, profanity is not usually the first thing out of my mouth, but I sure did think it, and in my journal, yeah, some of the things I write about people are not that nice. I usually tear up those pages afterwords, just in case somebody ever found it and read them, haha!